More than perhaps any American filmmaker working today, Sean Baker’s films are dependent on the interplay of his actors; whether working with well-known Hollywood stars or first-time non-professionals, the director works with his actors to shape his films through improvisation. One of the most crucial members of Baker’s ensemble is Karren Karagulian, the soft-spoken Armenian-American actor who has appeared in every single one of his films and served as a vital behind-the-scenes collaborator. In Baker’s latest, Anora, Karagulian plays Toros, the weary enforcer tasked by his Russian oligarch boss with reining in the film’s central couple and bringing them back to reality. On the eve of the film’s Boston premiere, the Hassle spoke with Karagulian about his career-long collaboration with Sean Baker, the conflicts of his character, and the perils of shooting in the wilds of Brighton Beach. (This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and flow).
BOSTON HASSLE: Something that I always try to ask– especially with actors, because I feel like there’s so many different answers– is how did you get your start in acting? Is it something you went to school for, or did you find a different way?
KARREN KARAGULIAN: No, I never went to school. In the early ’90s I used to hang out with kids from the NYU film school. Sean [Baker] was one of them, and I also had other friends that were attending film schools for some reason. Anytime they were doing anything, they would say, “Could you please do me a favor and be in my film?” So it just started like that, me doing favors for my friends and people I knew. And then the first time when I thought, “I want to become an actor when I grow up,” I was already 40 years old!
BH: You’ve been in all of Sean’s films from the beginning. What’s it like to have watched his films develop and gain more word of mouth over the years?
KK: I feel so lucky to have been with Sean throughout this whole journey, starting from the first movie he made, I think in 1995 or 1996, up until now. I think I’ve been in all his films, plus we also did a commercial together. It’s amazing. He’s been a walking encyclopedia of films all his life. The first day I met him, he was like that, and he’s still the same. He always works on himself, and when he’s not making films, he’s watching films, analyzing them. He has seen every single film in the world, starting with the shittiest film– you name it! I’m blessed to watch him get better and better with every film. He just surprises me in writing, in everything that he does, [and he’s] turned into this master that he is now.
BH: You’re often described as a collaborator with Sean– I know that you’re credited as a producer on Tangerine. What is your creative relationship like, as far as the way you develop these films together?
KK: I’ve always tried to help in any way I could making movies with Sean. Always my goal was to make the highest quality product that we could make at the time, and often our crews were short, so a lot of us wore different hats. So in Tangerine, for example, I helped any way I could– finding Armenian actors, probably writing Armenian dialog, or translating, or helping write subtitles. It’s a process that we do together. I don’t think about credit when I work with Sean. I think about getting the job done the best way I can. It’s been like that on Tangerine, it’s been like that on Starlet, Prince of Broadway, and now Anora.
BH: I was reading in Sean’s interview in Sight and Sound this month that Anora was built, if not around your character, then definitely around the world of these Russian and Armenian characters first, and I understand it’s been in the works for a while. Could you talk a little bit about how that’s developed?
KK: Sure. It was about 2008 or 2009 when we finished Prince of Broadway, and Sean at that time was living in New York City. So I went and asked him, “What do you think we should do next?” And I told him a story about something that happened to my cousin in Brighton Beach, and we started bouncing ideas back and forth. Brighton Beach is a neighborhood I’ve been always fascinated by. It’s very colorful and interesting. It’s actually the first place I went to when I came to the US in 1990– it’s like a magnet for all the Russian speaking immigrants that come to New York from former USSR countries, and I’ve been frequently visiting Brighton Beach to go to wedding parties, or dinner parties, and this and that.
So anyway, we started actually writing a story together in 2009– it was like a buddy-buddy kind of story happening in Brighton Beach. And we were trying to get it made, but we couldn’t get it financed, because producers were offering big name actors for roles that, for example, would have been played by me, having an Armenian or Russian accent. In any case, because of Sean’s dedication to authenticity, it never got made. [But this] Brighton Beach project has been in his head now for 15 years– he never forgot about it. And a few years ago, he called me, and he said that he wrote this script that he wants me to read, and he sent me Anora. I was in awe at how well-written, how sharp a screenplay that was. I fell in love with it. And of course, we’ve been communicating always regarding names of characters, or some locations, or some Armenian dialog, or some Russian dialog. We’re always in communication with stuff like that.
BH: I want to talk a little bit about your character, Toros, because I think he’s such a fascinating character. If you just read the plot synopsis, you’d think that he’s the villain, but as you’re watching the film you sort of come to like him, and understand him a little bit more– he sort of becomes sort of a co-lead, and I think a lot of that comes down to your performance. How did you craft this character?
KK: Well, Toros– it’s his biggest day of the year. He’s been asked to become a godfather, and in Armenian culture, that’s important. It’s a lot of responsibility to take responsibility for the child, God forbid, if something happens to the child’s parents. So they get prepared for it for months and months. In my real life, at that same church, wearing the same gown, I have become a godfather three times to three different kids. So he is a family man. I kind of feel sorry for him, because he has to leave this whole ceremony, which is a big deal for a godfather to leave the ceremony like that. And he’s under a lot of pressure from his wife, from his bosses. He’s facing a situation where he might lose his job, his income– his family’s wellbeing is in jeopardy. So he’s trying to survive. He’s an immigrant, and he puts his survival mode into effect. And there’s even a line there when he says, “I am going to find him tonight, no matter what.” But at the end of the day, he’s a family man. He’s a normal guy trying to survive.
BH: I know that there’s always a lot of improvisation in Sean’s films. Did you and the other actors have any sort of hand in developing the shape of the film?
KK: Yeah. The amazing talent of Sean is to allow his actors a certain amount of freedom on set. He lets you do your own take and then, if he likes it, he will kind of repaint the picture, and make that improvisation work. And also, because there were two other languages involved, we had to improvise. For example, I remember a scene where he told me, “I want you to say, ‘My wife is going to drive this car tomorrow,’ but I want you to go into the scene in Armenian, and then maneuver [into] Russian, and then come out of it in English.” And so, of course, I was improvising with my fellow actors, and I was so lucky to be in the company of such talented people like Yuri Borisov and Vache Tovmasyan. When you’re acting, when you’re projecting something, if you receive the right energy, you can keep going. So, yeah, he gives me a little bit of freedom, Sean, and we also have developed together a relationship throughout these years [where] sometimes words are not needed. He knows what I can do, and what I’m going to do, and I know what he wants me to do, so we communicate like that with not too many words. And it works sometimes! [laughs]
BH: I understand that at least some of the scenes, especially when you’re going from place to place, were shot guerilla-style, with actual people. What was that like?
KK: Oh, that was crazy. I’ll give you one example. You know that scene where we have dinner in the Tatiana Restaurant? Only the restaurant owners knew that we were making a movie, but the patrons that were having dinners and birthday parties there– no one knew. So the first take I do, I go grab the mic and I do my thing. Everything’s okay. Second take I do, some of the people are already a little bit aggravated. They’re like, “No, we told you already we haven’t seen this child! Why you keep bothering us?” So now Sean wants to do the third take, and on the third take a lot of these other people sitting on the side were angry. They’re like, “How many fucking times I have to tell you I haven’t seen this child? We’re having dinner here! Why are you doing this? We paid for our dinner, we’re trying to relax, you come, you interrupt us!” So now I come out and Sean says, “Let’s just, for safety, let’s do a fourth take.” And Vache comes in, and he goes, “Sean, if you do a fourth take, you gotta be ready to fight, because for sure, those men from that other table, they’re gonna start a fight here!” And of course, we ended up using the first take. But, you know, I’m used to that kind of thing with Sean, because we’ve done it with our other films as well.
BH: That’s amazing. So many of the locations just felt so real. Were you involved at all with the location scouting, or finding the right place for each scene? Because each place felt like it was the perfect place for that scene.
KK: A few years ago, when Sean came to Brighton, we went and started looking around, and I was showing him around. And of course, Brighton Beach’s former charm is fading away. I see the bookstore that I used to buy my books from is gone now– there’s a bank there. All these old style, big, beautiful restaurants, they’re all gone. There’s little malls there. So it’s gentrifying, obviously, but I feel like we were able to catch the last fading glimpses of that neighborhood’s charm.
BH: As the film expands and catches on by word of mouth, what do you hope that people take away from the film?
KK: Good question. What I hope for is that people take away a little bit of love and try to give it to each other on a daily basis and hopefully make this world a little bit better place.
Anora
2024
dir. Sean Baker
139 min.
Screening on 35mm @ Coolidge Corner Theatre now through 11/5
Also now showing @ Kendall Square Cinema, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, and AMC Boston Common and Assembly Row. Opens Friday, 11/1 @ Somerville Theatre
